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Study Suggests Race and Ethnicity Not Significant Factors in Crack Use

DRUG USE TRENDS

March 1993

A recent study suggests that social and environmental factors are far more significant than race and ethnicity in determining likelihood of use of crack cocaine (Marsha Lillie-Blanton, James Anthony, and Charles Schuster, "Probing the Meaning of Racial/Ethnic Group Comparisons in Crack Cocaine Smoking," Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 2/24/93, Vol. 269, No. 8, pp. 993-997, 1034).

The study's authors reanalyzed 1988 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse data, comparing racial/ethnic differences in crack cocaine smoking. Grouping respondents into neighborhood clusters, they adjusted for social and environmental factors, and found that relative odds of crack use did not vary significantly for African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans compared with white Americans.